Toshinao Sasaki's thoughts on why DX is not spreading and the background Tech and Future Vol.1

A new series of articles asking intellectual Toshinao Sasaki a wide range of questions about the future of technology and society.

The theme of the first installment is "DX".

The term "DX (Digital Transformation)" has been around for a long time, but it seems that there are companies that are successfully implementing so-called "DX" and companies that are not.

Sasaki: First of all, in Japan, the definition of ‘DX’ is not very clear. In the 70s and 80s, there was OA, and around 2000 there was IT, and now in the 2020s the term DX is popular. For example, OA is about replacing handwritten documents with photocopies and faxes.

IT-isation means that we are using messengers and e-mails instead of voice data, and OA and IT are simply the digitisation of tools.

However, the basic concept of DX is to reconstruct business models digitally, not to digitalise tools. That is not well understood.

For example, there are people who say, ‘We have DX because we use zoom in remote work, so DX is advanced in our company’ without any hesitation, and there are also people who say, ‘We are introducing DX’. But DX is not a tool, so it is not something to be introduced. It is something that changes the company and the business itself.